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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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June 20th,
2009 - Delay in Releasing CIA Report Is Sought |
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Delay in Releasing CIA
Report Is Sought Justice Dept. Wants More Time to Review IG's Findings on Detainee
Treatment By Carrie Johnson Washington Post June 20, 2009 The Justice Department needs
a week to complete its review of a 2004 CIA inspector general's report before
releasing it in redacted form to civil liberties advocates, officials said
yesterday. Government lawyers notified
the American Civil Liberties Union of the delay yesterday afternoon, citing a
longer-than-expected review process at the CIA. Activists requested the
report as part of a longstanding Freedom of Information Act lawsuit focusing
on the U.S. government's detention and treatment of terrorism suspects after
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. CIA officials sought to
redact many sensitive and classified elements of the lengthy report,
including details about the use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other
harsh measures against detainees. The report by the agency's internal
watchdog raised questions about the legality of the CIA's strategy and
ignited a fierce debate within the agency and the Bush administration after
it was completed five years ago. Tension over how much to
disclose in the fight against terrorism continues to roil the highest levels
of the Obama administration. After a behind-the-scenes fight, authorities
released earlier this year four memos by the Bush Justice Department's Office
of Legal Counsel that paved the way for information-gathering techniques that
critics assert are torture. But at the urging of Defense Department
officials, the White House has sought to bar the release of photos depicting
detainee abuse on the ground that they could incite violence against U.S.
forces. The report is the most
definitive official account to date of the CIA's interrogation system. A
heavily redacted version, consisting of a dozen or so paragraphs separated by
heavy black boxes and lists of missing pages, was released in May 2008 in
response to the ACLU lawsuit. The broad conclusions of the report, as well as
its specific assertion that some interrogators exceeded limits approved by
the Justice Department, have been disclosed. Administration officials
have been cool to the idea of a congressionally chartered "truth
commission" that would explore the origins and effects of the
interrogation program. But they have repeatedly been forced to respond to
lawsuits they inherited, filed by interest groups that seek sensitive
government documents from the Bush era. New leaders at the Justice
Department generally lean toward disclosure, but they are playing a secondary
role in the case of the CIA inspector general's report because they did not
have a hand in investigating or preparing the report. Amrit Singh, an ACLU lawyer,
said the group is disappointed by the delay. "We can only hope that this
delay is a sign that the forces of transparency within the Obama
administration are winning over the forces of secrecy and that the report
will ultimately be released with minimal redactions," she said.
"The CIA should not be permitted to use national security as a pretext
for suppressing evidence of its own unlawful conduct." CIA spokesman George Little
said the process "is working just as it should." He rejected the
ACLU's allegations of suppressed evidence as "wrong and offensive." Staff writer Joby Warrick
contributed to this report. External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/19/AR2009061903335.html |